Tuesday Night Dinner – River Cobbler Fish with Olives, Chimichurri and Mashed Potatoes

Last night I had a very simple dinner. Vietnamese River Cobbler which I’d bought from Tesco (where else?) and had in my freezer.

I defrosted it in the fridge, slapped on some chimichurri sauce that I’d found in my fridge and olives. I served this with mashed potatoes.

If you’ve never had or made Chimichurri sauce before – it’s very easy and can be stored in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Sunday Dinner Recipe | Slow Cooked Sweet Spiced Lamb Shanks

I fancied something different for Sunday dinner today, so when I went to the supermarket yesterday my eye wandered over the lamb section. I then remembered a recipe I had jotted into my iPhone notes that I wanted to try. I had everything the recipe called for apart from lamb and lager (yes! lager).

No prep required as far as marinating goes – which was good because I went out with Cupcake Chen last night and stayed at her house. So I got in today at 4pm and pretty much started cooking. The recipe calls for a solid 2.5 hours in the oven – great time to catch up on my phone calls and wash my hair. Hell I even had dinner before 8pm tonight, that my dears is a first. I’m sitting here at almost 10pm wondering what to do with all this time I’ve gained back. I’m on a #winning streak.

Recipe | Home made fish and chips | Fresh haddock in organic beer batter and twice cooked chips

Yesterday I cooked fish and chips – from scratch – for the first time. It was surprisingly easy – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped a lot.

There are a lot of recipes and videos advising on how to make the perfect batter. Some use fizzy water, some use beer, some neither. I wanted beer in my batter so after looking around for a while, this video came in very handy before I got to work. It seems apt that the video was from Hugh as he is currently actively involved in campaigning with The Big Fish Fight.

I halved the quantities Hugh recommended. So instead of eight tablespoons of plain flour, I used four, and a half bottle of Organic beer (the other half I disposed of sensibly – in my stomach).

Recipe | Posh Bangers and Mash | Venison Sausages with Bourguignon/Red Onion Gravy and Mashed Potatoes with Peas and Mint

I always try to plan weekly dinners in advance to save time deciding what to eat when I get home (often after 7 in the evening). Going to the supermarket I like to have an idea of at least 4 meals for the week. I almost always make a batch of my marinara sauce. I always stick a tub of marscarpone in the trolley, a bag of spinach, frozen prawns are essential as they don’t need to be defrosted. With this I can create some sort of creamy white wine sauce with spinach & prawns and then serve with linguine. Or, using my marinara sauce I can heat through the sauce, prawns & serve with fusili pasta.

On my weekend shop last week I decided I quite fancied bangers & mash. I have certain views about this dish – I don’t think pork sausages can be served with mash and a good onion gravy. It just has to be red meat! I should have thought this one out earlier though, and gone to the butchers as Sainabury’s selection of beef sausages was terrible. They only had one kind. Reluctantly I picked them up and then noticed they had venison sausages – perfect.